New York Obtains Boreas Ponds Adirondack Tract

April 20, 2016

| Pat Bradley, WAMC

In 2007, The Nature Conservancy bought 161,000 acres of Adirondack land from the Finch Pruyn timber company. In 2012, New York State announced they would purchase the lands over time from the Conservancy’s Adirondack Chapter. The Nature Conservancy has now sold the final tract and transferred the deed to New York State.

The 20,758 acre Boreas Ponds tract borders the largest wilderness areas in the Adirondacks and is the last in a string of transactions to acquire former Finch Pruyn lands by the state of New York. Adirondack Nature Conservancy Executive Director Mike Carr calls the Boreas Ponds the crown jewel of the overall state land acquisition. “It’s such a massive tract so it was kind of a sequencing issue for the state in terms of the Environmental Protection Fund money. You know so we had to kind of stage them. They couldn’t do it all at once. And there was a lot to do on this tract. There are leases and we needed to understand it biologically. It’s just teeming with moose and brook trout and it’s spectacularly beautiful. The view from Second Pond is…you’re surrounded by the High Peaks and it’s really like standing at one of the world’s great cathedrals. It’s just that same feeling you get of being completely surrounded by beauty.”

The Boreas Ponds tract includes 50 miles of rivers and streams, forests and habitat for moose, loons and the Bicknell’s Thrush.